Voters elected all six candidates in the running and six write-ins to the Graduate Student Council (GSC) in this year’s Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) election. Of the 15 seats on the council, 12 were filled, according to election results released on Monday.
Graduate student turnout increased from 8.73% last year to 9.91%, though turnout has still not returned to 2020 levels, during which 23.02% of the graduate student population voted. The election marks a continuation of the GSC’s struggle since the start of the pandemic to increase its visibility and engagement with the graduate student population.
Returning to the council will be former GSC co-chair, previous Engineering District representative and sixth-year mechanical engineering Ph.D. student Yiqing Ding, who was elected to be an at-large representative with 179 votes. Entering his fifth term on the GSC, Ding will be the longest-serving representative on the incoming council.
Joining Ding as an at-large representative is Guillem Megias Homar, a second-year masters student in aerospace, aeronautical and astronautical/space engineering who received 322 votes. The three remaining at-large seats were filled by write-in candidates.
Fifth-year modern thought and literature Ph.D. student Jamie Fine was also re-elected to represent the Humanities District, And Luis Sanchez Tejada M.A. ’23 was elected to represent the Social Sciences District. Second-year aeronautics and astronautics Ph.D. student Jason Anderson, also a GSC councilor last year, and third-year electrical engineering Ph.D. student Kavya Sreedhar were elected to represent the School of Engineering District. Anderson and Sreedhar received 186 and 131 votes respectively.
In their platforms, Homar and Anderson advocated for initiatives to increase accessibility, provide more personal finance support to graduate students and create individually tailored services at Vaden Health Center and CAPS.
Both also advocated for additions to the current graduate student governing body. Homar supported the establishment of a graduate housing committee to negotiate housing rates and to promote “more transparency” within the housing and assignment process, while Anderson supported the creation of a Benefits and Affordability Advocacy Chair, who would ensure students obtain optimal benefits from resources like Cardinal Care and promote general financial wellness.
No candidates officially ran to represent the Schools of Education, Natural Sciences, Law, Business, Earth Sciences or Medicine. Jarita Greyeyes, a fourth-year Ph.D. student in education, Jyotirmai Singh, a fourth-year Ph.D. student in physics and Horace (Chico) Payne, a first-year law student, received three, two and five write-in votes to win the School of Education’s, School of Natural Sciences’s and School of Law’s seats on the council, respectively.
Three seats were not filled due to ties among write-in candidates. Two write-in candidates tied for the representative position for the School of Medicine, 12 tied in the Graduate School of Business and six tied in the School of Earth Sciences, with each write-in receiving one vote. According to the GSC Bylaws, the council will perform a search of at least one week to fill the vacant spots. If only one candidate applies, their appointment will be confirmed by majority vote of the acting council, while an exhaustive ballot process will be used in the case of multiple candidates.
This article has been corrected to reflect the proper procedure for filling GSC seats as outlined in the bylaws and to reflect that Jamie Fine is a fifth year Ph.D student. The Daily regrets this error.
This article has been updated to include the names of all elected GSC representatives and information about candidates’ platforms.